DISPATCHES

LATINOS BLUNT GOP SUN BELT EDGE

Republicans hope population shifts from the North to Sun Belt
states will help them in future House races and enlarge the GOP's
electoral count in presidential elections, Donald Lambro wrote in the
1/8/07 Washington Times. Election Data Services, a firm that studies
how population shifts affect redistricting changes under
congressional reapportionment, said that population shifts since the
2000 census would cost House seats in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
New York, Ohio, Missouri, Iowa and Louisiana, gain one seat each in
Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Utah, and gain two seats in
Texas.

Polidata, a Virginia-based demographic and political research
firm, projects even larger "probable changes" by the 2010 census, as
13 seats could shift among 19 states, with eight gainers and 11
losers. "All the gainers are in the South and West and all the losers
are in the East and Midwest except Louisiana," the Polidata study
said. "Biggest gainers" would be Texas, with four additional seats,
two seats each in Florida and Arizona and one each in Georgia, Utah,
Nevada, Oregon and Washington. The biggest losers would be New York
and Ohio, with two seats each. Massachusetts, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and
Louisiana each would lose one. House seat shifts will not take place
until after the 2010 census, when states redraw congressional
boundaries in time for the 2012 elections.

However, the supposed GOP advantage is uncertain, as political
analyst Rhodes Cook noted that the demographics of the migration is
unknown. "Some of them could be more affluent white conservatives,
but they might be Hispanics who tend to vote more Democratic."

Don Rose noted in the Chicago Tribune 12/26/06 that demographic
change is working to the Democrats' advantage as more and more
Latinos and Asians register and vote. Republicans made inroads into
the Latino vote in 2004, capturing close to 45% for George W. Bush,
but blew it this year with anti-immigrant campaigning. Dems won 70%
of the Latino vote and are likely to gain more in years ahead. "This
is a factor not only in the Southwest, but also in the Midwest.

Republicans will have to defend 21 of the 33 Senate seats up in
2008, including several vulnerable senators such as Minnesota's Norm
Coleman, New Hampshire's John Sununu and Colorado's Wayne Allard.
They also face the possible retirement of several senators, leaving
open seats that always are more competitive.

Rose, a political consultant in Chicago, noted that the Southwest
and Rocky Mountain states are going "purple if not blue." Montana now
has two Democratic senators and a Democratic governor. Democrats have
governorships and are making new gains in Arizona and New Mexico.
Colorado and Nevada are showing early symptoms of similar change.

"Those shifts are due in large part to the increasing Latino vote,
but also because of political change. In the growing suburban areas
around Phoenix, Denver and elsewhere, the hard-line, right-wing
issues such as opposing stem-cell research are turning many moderate
voters from red to blue. Arizona voters actually rejected an
anti-gay-marriage referendum question. We've seen those factors turn
Illinois as well as most of New England into solidly Democratic
states," Rose wrote.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign
Committee, told the New York Daily News (1/7/07) that 11 of the 12
incumbent Democrats have agreed to run for re-election, with Iowa
Sen. Tom Harkin uncommitted.

At home, Harkin, if officially undeclared, has suggested he's
looking forward to ending another ambitious Republican congressman's
career in 2008. Rep. Steve King, a right-wing immigrant basher from
western Iowa, is said to be considering a race. Also, it appears any
commitment by Sen. Tim Johnson (S.D.) to run for re-election would
have been before his brain surgery and therefore might be
reconsidered. It also assumes Sens. John Kerry (Mass.) and Joe Biden
(Del.) and possibly others will be seeking re-election in addition to
the White House.

FOR REPUBLICANS, IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE: Of the 202
Republicans sworn in 1/4/06 as members of 110th Congress, 15
maintained their seats by margins of 3 points or less, CQPolitics.com
noted. On the other side of the aisle, just two of the 233 Democrats
were winners of contests by similarly razor-thin margins. In the
Senate, where Dems claimed a 51-49 majority with a six-seat net gain,
only one seat was maintained by the incumbent party by fewer than 3
points, and it too was won by a Republican: Tennessee's Bob Corker,
former Chattanooga mayor who edged Democrat Harold E. Ford Jr. for
the seat that Republican Bill Frist -- the outgoing Senate majority
leader -- left to retire.

QUEEN BEES & ALPHA MALES: The opening of the 110th
Congress marked election of the first female House speaker in the
nation's history, as Nancy Pelosi, surrounded by her children and
grandchildren, broke through the "marble ceiling" to not only preside
over the House but also become second in line for the Oval Office.
But Ryan Lizza in "Invasion of the Alpha Male Democrat" in the 1/7/07
New York Times noted the election to the House and Senate of "Macho
Dems," such as several Iraq, Afghan and Vietnam war veterans, an
Indiana sheriff, a former NFL quarterback from North Carolina and a
husky Montana farmer with a buzz-cut and missing fingers from farm
accidents. "These are red-blooded Americans who are tough," said John
Lapp, the former executive director of the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee who helped recruit several of this "new breed" of
candidate to appeal to rural and "exurban" voters.

But Clara Bingham noted in "Queens of the Hill" in the
January/February 2007 Washington Monthly that women also moved into
positions of leadership of key committees and subcommittees. Rep.
Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) leads the Rules committee, which determines
which bills reach the floor for a vote; Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)
co-chairs the Democratic Steering Committee, which formulates policy
for the caucus, and Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-Calif.) serves as her vice
chair. Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz
(D-Fla.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) have
joined the nine-member team of chief deputy whips.

In the Senate, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) is the Democratic
conference secretary, the fourth-ranking member in the leadership.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is chief deputy whip and chairs the
Environment and Public Works committee (she also hired the
committee's first-ever female chief of staff). Sen. Dianne Feinstein
(D-Calif.) leads the Rules Committee. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.),
dean of the Senate women, is chair of an Appropriations subcommittee,
and Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), and
Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) serve on the Senate's most powerful
committee: Finance. Bingham wrote that Pelosi's new agenda is
family-oriented, and she has shown no signs of shying away from
women's priorities, while Slaughter has made a point of stacking the
Rules committee with pro-choice Democrats. Sen. Murray's list of
priorities read like a feminist's dream: invest in women's health
care, help victims of domestic violence, protect women in
retirement.

Bingham noted that Democratic lawmakers owe their electoral
success to women voters, who make up an increasingly large majority
of Democratic voters nationwide and helped decide the two elections
that propelled Democrats into the Senate majority. In Virginia, 55%
of women voted for Jim Webb, while in Montana, the other Senate
squeaker, 52% of women supported Jon Tester.

SURGE PROTECTORS: Some Democrats are shying away from a
confrontation over President Bush's war powers, but the House
leadership believes Congress has the ability to restrict the Bush
administration's ability to escalate the war in Iraq. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi said on CBS' Face the Nation (1/7/07) that Congress may
refuse to authorize funding for an escalation of US forces to Iraq if
President Bush cannot justify the strategy. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.),
the Foreign Relations chairman, said on Meet the Press (1/7/07) that
it was "constitutionally questionable" whether Congress could preempt
funding of Bush's desired "surge." Asked about that on Hardball
(1/8/07), Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) replied, "No, that's not true at
all," adding "we have every ability." Asked why certain Democrats
were shirking from this option, he offered, "I'll tell you, it's all
political," according to TPMMuckraker.com. Murtha, chair of the
Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, told Arianna Huffington
(1/3/07) he wants to "fence the funding," denying the president the
resources to escalate the war, instead using the money to take care
of the soldiers as we bring them home from Iraq "as soon as we
can."

STRAIGHT TALK ON DEFICIT: Ezra Klein of The American
Prospect (Prospect.org), following John Edwards on his presidential
campaign kickoff tour, noted 12/29/06 that, when asked about the
deficit in Des Moines, Edwards acknowledged that there is a tension
between the deficits under the Bush administration and our need to
invest and make America stronger for the 21st century. "I think that,
if we're honest, you cannot -- it's just common sense in the math --
have universal health care, and invest in energy, and make a serious
effort to eliminate poverty, to strengthen the middle class, and do
some of the work that I think America needs to be leading on around
the world, and at the same time, eliminate the deficit," Edwards
said. "Those things are incompatible. And anybody who claims --
politicians who say 'I'm going to give you a big tax cut, and give
you health care, put more money into education, and oh by the way,
we're going to balance the budget in the process,' it's just
make-believe, it isn't the truth. So I think there's gonna be hard
judgments that have to be made.

"My commitment is to have universal health care, to do things that
have to be done about this energy situation and global warming,
because I think they're enormous threats, not only to the people of
America but to the future of the world, for America to lead on some
of these big moral issues that face the world, and I think America
has to do something about poverty, I just do. Those are higher
priorities to me than the elimination of the deficit. I don't want to
make the deficit worse and I would like to reduce the deficit, but in
the short-term, if we don't take a step to deal with these other
issues, it in my judgment, undermines the ability of America to
remain strong in the 21st century."

US OPENS IRAQ OILFIELDS: Iraq's massive oil reserves are
about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil
companies under a controversial law which the US government has been
involved in drawing up, the London Independent reported 1/7/07. The
US is pressing to give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon
30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first
large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since
the industry was nationalized in 1972. "The huge potential prizes for
Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war
was fought for oil," Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb
wrote. "They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick
Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the
oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an
additional 50 mln barrels of oil a day by 2010. 'So where is the oil
going to come from? ... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the
world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately
lies,' he said."

OBAMA STRONG IN IOWA: Iowa politicians see Barack Obama as
a potentially strong candidate in the Hawkeye State, Douglas Burns
noted in the 12/26/06 Carroll Daily Times Herald, in rural western
Iowa. While the Illinois Democrat got his exotic name from his Kenyan
father, he got his Midwestern accent from his Kansan mother. Burns
added that in Obama's memoir, Dreams From My Father, it is clear that
his white Kansan grandparents formed his view of life more than his
absentee Kenyan father. "When you listen to Obama, the substance of
thinking, the cadence of his reasoning, his unassuming acceptance of
people, you hear a Midwesterner," Burns wrote, adding that Obama's
gift for writing, as shown in his two best-selling books, helps him
give others a voice. In Indianola, Iowa, this past September, before
a mostly white audience of 3,000 people, Obama held the crowd in rapt
attention, Burns noted. "In fact, it was so quiet at times that you
could hear the leaves rustling in a gentle wind." The Sioux City
(Iowa) Journal reported in December that former vice presidential
candidate John Edwards is the top choice among Iowa Democrats likely
to attend the 2008 presidential caucuses with 36% of those asked,
according to an Environmental Defense poll. US Sen. Hillary Clinton,
D-N.Y., finished second with 16%, and Obama had 13%, leading ahead of
Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who was fourth at 9%.

CORN TOO HIGH? As Congress prepares to debate a new farm
bill, Larry Mitchell, chief executive of the American Corn Growers
Association (acga.org), notes that the higher demand for corn brought
on by ethanol production has brought complaints that corn prices are
too high at $3.50 a bushel. But he recalled that the 1981 farm bill
set in place a $2.65 price support (loan) rate for corn. "Adding the
inflation rate to that loan rate, it could be argued that the prices
we see today are by no means high in comparison to historic prices."
In 2005, that 1981 $2.65 corn loan rate was worth $5.69 using the
Consumer Price Index (CPI) or up to $10.55 using the relative share
the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The average price of corn paid to
farmers in 1980 was $3.11 per bushel. In 2005 the average price was
only $1.90. But while the prices paid to farmers for corn and most
other crops have been driven down dramatically during the past 25
years, the prices paid by consumers have followed or exceeded almost
all price indexes. According to USDA, the farmer's share of America's
food dollar was 31 cents in 1981. In 2005 it had fallen to less than
20 cents &endash; a decline of 35%. "We need farm policy that
provides a price support to farm families rather than subsidies, an
adequate strategic reserve of storable food and feed commodities and
a way to curb overproduction of crops now in surplus so that we can
plant new energy producing crops to help the nation mover toward
energy independence," Mitchell wrote.

THEY FRAMED A GUILTY MAN: In the week following Saddam
Hussein's hanging in an execution steeped in sectarian overtones, his
public image in the Arab world, formerly that of a convicted
dictator, has undergone a resurgence of admiration and awe, Hassan
noted in the 1/6/07 New York Times. On the streets, in newspapers and
over the Internet, Hussein emerged as a Sunni Arab hero who stood
calm and composed as his Shi'ite executioners tormented and abused
him. "No one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was executed,"
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt remarked in an interview with the
Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot published 1/5/06 and distributed by
the official Egyptian news agency. "They turned him into a
martyr."

Ayman Safadi, editor in chief of the independent Jordanian daily
Al Ghad, said, "The last image for many was of Saddam taken out of a
hole. That has all changed now."

Safadi added, "In the public's perception Saddam was terrible, but
those people were worse. That final act has really jeopardized the
future of Iraq immensely. And we all know this is a blow to the
moderate camp in the Arab world."

Haroon Siddiqui, editorial page editor emeritus of the Toronto
Star, wrote in the 1/6/07 Star from Hyderbad, India, that the
spectacle of Saddam's hanging united the world's largest democracy,
with 1.2 bln people, including Muslims, Christians, Sikhs,
Zoroastrians and others as well as the Hindu majority Hindu, with
condemnation near universal. "If India is a key barometer of the
non-Western world, and it often is, Saddam's hanging will come to
haunt George W. Bush," Siddiqui wrote. "Far from being "an important
milestone in Iraq becoming a democracy," as he so brazenly put it,
the hanging is widely seen as an occupying power's jungle justice
against a tyrant whose worst crimes were committed when he was an
American ally but who was condemned only after he went against his
benefactors."

LEAHY MOVES ON WAR PROFITEERING: Sen. Patrick Leahy
(D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has introduced a
bill to criminalize water profiteering and provide clear authority
for the government to seek criminal penalties and to recover
excessive profits for war profiteering overseas. The War Profiteering
Prevention Act of 2007 would provide punishment of up to 20 years and
fines of $1 million or twice gross profits of the profiteering. Leahy
also joined Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) to introduce a bill extend the
statute of limitations for many public corruption offenses, allow
federal investigators to use wiretaps when chasing state and local
officials defrauding the federal government and boost the FBI's
public integrity budget by $100 mln over four years. The US has spent
more than $437 billion on the Iraq war, according to the
Congressional Research Service. An estimated $100 billion will be
spent in 2007, with much of that money going to civilian contractors
involved in reconstruction and providing services to the troops.

HACK HEADS CONSUMER AGENCY: When George W. Bush occupied
the White House in 2001, he showed his concern for the Consumer
Product Safety Commission by naming as its chairman Hal Stratton, a
former state representative and attorney general for New Mexico, who
earned a reputation for calling few public hearings and lagging on
new safety regulations before he finally left his post in June 2006.
Now Bush reportedly plans to name National Association of
Manufacturers lobbyist Michael Baroody as the new chairman, the *Wall
Street Journal* reported 1/6/07. "It's sort of astonishing that the
administration would pick someone from a regulated industry," Rachel
Weintraub of the Consumer Federation of America told the *Journal*.
Baroody, a staunch opponent of labor unions, has also taken a hard
line against lawsuits targeting the asbestos industry,
TheCarpetbaggerReport.com noted (1/6/07).

CONN. POLITICAL ACTIVIST ARRESTED: A freelance journalist
who has worked on political campaigns was arrested 1/3/07 by Hartford
police as he took photos of Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell's inaugural
parade in downtown Hartford. Ken Krayeske, who worked on Green Party
candidate Cliff Thornton's campaign for governor against Rell, was
near the corner of Ford and Pearl Street photographing Rell's
inaugural parade when, according to the police report, he was
identified as a "political activist" and a threat to the governor.
Krayeske was arrested about 1:20 p.m. and charged with breach of
peace and interfering with an officer. Bond was originally set at
$75,000 before he was released on personal recognizance about 1 a.m.
1/4/07, Ctnewsjunkie.com reported. Norman A. Pattis, a criminal
defense and civil rights attorney, called the charges "ridiculous"
and entered a "not guilty" plea on Krayeske's behalf 1/5/07 in
Hartford Community Court. Hartford police said Krayeske was arrested
for charging at Pell during the parade, but the Eliot Streim, a
Hartford lawyer who was watching the parade with a colleague, told
the Hartford Courant police did not intercept Krayeske as he ran into
the parade route. On the contrary, Krayeske photographed the governor
without incident and was detained by police only after Rell had
passed by, Streim said.

REVERSE GOLDEN RULE: Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio)
on new House rules: "What we really expect out of the Democrats is
for them to treat us as they would like to have been treated." (Fox
News)

US REOPENS TO CANADIAN BEEF: US cattle producers expressed
disappointment with the USDA's decision to open the US border to
Canadian beef since concerns about bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(mad cow disease) have died down. "US cattle producers continue to
have no assurance that Canada has its BSE problem under control and
we expect USDA to prioritize the interests of US cattle producers and
consumers over the interests of re-opening beef trade with Canada,"
National Farmers Union President Tom Buis said. "I am hopeful that
the Secretary will use his authority to mitigate any negative
economic impact this decision will have on U.S. cattle producers.
Further, I encourage the department to fully implement mandatory
country-of-origin labeling before implementing the rule regarding
additional Canadian beef and cattle imports. Mandatory COOL is the
only tool to protect the integrity of the U.S. beef industry if an
additional BSE case is discovered within the Canadian herd." See
www.nfu.org.

UNION ORGANIZERS FIRED: John Schmitt and Ben Zipperer of
the Center for Economic and Policy Research (cepr.net) reported in
January that "one in seven union organizers and activists are
illegally fired while trying to organize unions at their place of
work." Technically speaking, it's against the law to fire a worker
for being involved in an organizing drive. In practice, though,
employers just have to cop to a small fine -- back pay averaging
around $2,500 per firing--if they break this law. Most businesses are
happy to pony up and take out a few key pro-union employees, which
usually disrupts the campaign and intimidates the other workers. It's
certainly cheaper than granting union recognition. Under the Bush
administration, Brad Plumer noted at plumer.blogspot.com, illegal
firings have risen substantially -- largely because the current
National Labor Relations Board has little interest in punishing
union-busting employers. "It's no wonder so many unions prefer
card-check elections, in which a majority of workers simply have to
sign cards signaling their approval in order to win union
representation. The current system of NLRB elections drags on for
much too long, giving the employer time to stall, figure out who the
culprits are, and do a few illegal firings -- which, it seems,
happens quite frequently." Unions are promoting the Employee Free
Choice Act, which would require employers to recognize a union after
a majority of workers sign cards representing union
representation.

GLOBAL UNION TALKS: British, American and German unions are
to forge a pact to challenge the power of global capitalism in a move
towards creating an international union with more than 6 million
members, the London Observer reported 12/31/06. Amicus, the UK's
largest private-sector union, has signed agreements with the German
engineering union IG-Metall and two of the largest labor
organizations in the US, the United Steelworkers and the
International Association of Machinists, to prevent companies playing
off their workforces in different countries against each other. The
move is seen by union leaders as the first step towards creating a
single union that can present a united front to multinational
companies. Amicus plans to merge with the Transport & General
Workers' Union in May to create a 2 mln-strong labor organisation.
Between IG-Metall's 2.4 mln members, the USW's 1.2 mln and 730,000 at
the Machinists', a merger would create an organisation with some 6.3
mln members.

FOREIGNERS OPERATE TOLLWAYS: Fifty years after President
Dwight D. Eisenhower put his pen to the Federal-Aid Highway Act,
which called for the federal and state governments to build 41,000
miles of high-quality interstate highways across the nation, many
state highway systems are being privatized. Daniel Schulman and James
Ridgeway wrote in the January/February Mother Jones that Indiana has
received $3.8 bln from consortium made up of Cintra and the Macquarie
Infrastructure Group (MIG) of Australia that will operate the
157-mile Indiana Toll Road for the next 75 years. There is talk of
privatizing everything from the New York Thruway to the Ohio,
Pennsylvania and New Jersey turnpikes, as well as inviting the
private sector to build and operate highways and bridges from Alabama
to Alaska. More than 20 states have enacted legislation allowing
public-private partnerships to run highways. Another Australian toll
road operator, Transurban, paid more than half a billion dollars for
a 99-year lease on Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, and the Texas
Transportation Commission green-lighted a $1.3 billion bid by Cintra
and construction behemoth Zachry Construction to build and operate a
40-mile toll road out of Austin. Many similar deals are now on the
horizon, and MIG and Cintra are often part of them. So is Goldman
Sachs, the huge Wall Street firm that has played a remarkable role
advising states on how to structure privatization deals -- even while
positioning itself to invest in the toll road market. The
privatization model has the full backing of the Bush
administration.

COAL MINE DEATHS UP 210%: From Jan. 2, 2006, when 12 coal
miners were killed in an explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia,
until Dec. 17, when John Elliot was killed in a roof collapse at a
Dana Co. mine near Maidsville, W.Va., 47 coal miners died on the job
last year, the deadliest year in the nation's coal mines since 1996.
The death toll was a 210% increase over 2005, when 22 coal miners
died on the job. The Mine Workers (UMWA) union and other coal safety
advocates fear the trend could continue due to the huge demand for
coal and its profits; the Bush administration's lax enforcement
record since taking over the Mine Safety and Health Administration
(MSHA) in 2001; and a workforce that is expected to grow younger and
more inexperienced in the coming years.

TROOPS DISAPPROVE OF WAR: The American military -- once a
staunch supporter of President Bush and the Iraq war -- has grown
increasingly pessimistic about chances for victory, according to the
2006 Military Times Poll, the Army Times reported 12/29/06. Only 35%
of military members polled said they approve of the way Bush is
handling the war, while 42% disapproved. The president's approval
rating among the military is only slightly higher than for the
population as a whole. In 2004, when his popularity peaked, 63% of
the military approved of Bush's handling of the war. Greg Sargent of
TPMMuckraker noted 12/29/06 the poll questioned 6,000 randomly
selected active-duty soldiers, 50% of whom have done at least one
tour in Iraq.

HOUSE DEMS LIMIT CHAIR TERMS: House Democrats have decided
to keep the six-year term limits that Republicans installed on
committee chairs. The move was applauded by Markos Moulitsas of
DailyKos.com, who wrote (1/7/07) "There are far too many talented and
exciting young Democrats in the House to relegate them to permanent
back-bench status because some unaccountable committee chair 'got
there first.'" But Kevin Drum of WashingtonMonthly.com, for one,
questioned the six-year terms. "For my money, it takes three or four
years for a committee chair (or legislator) to get good at their job,
and they ought to then have seven or eight years to ply their trade.
In other words, why not term limits of 10-12 years? It would prevent
people from making careers out of their seats, but it would still
allow them time to learn how to do their jobs effectively."